Has Joplin R-8 Administration stopped providing documentation for board meetings on website?

One of the nice things about the Joplin R-8 School District website has been the open way in which documentation has been provided for board of education meetings.

Each month, the public had an opportunity to see the same things, for the most part, that board members received in their packets. That started changing slightly when all of a sudden, the resignations and retirements that had always been placed in the documentation did not show up on the website any more.

After all, who wants it to be known that more than 200 teachers have left the district, willingly or unwillingly, in the last 16 months?

Now the last documentation seen on the website is for the June 25 board meeting and unless it is carefully hidden there is no documentation for the July board meeting, which took place almost seven weeks ago.

Could it be that administration was embarrassed by the information that the Turner Report published from its June 25 documentation? The following is taken from the July 2 Turner Report.

Just a few days after the Joplin R-8 Board of Education adopted a deficit budget due to construction costs, at least 27 administrators and TLCs learning coaches are staying in Washington's four-star Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center attending the 21st annual Model Schools Conference.

The cost for registering for the four-day event, which began Sunday and lasts through Wednesday, was $14,310, and the website for the Model Schools Conference indicates that amount does not include the cost of lodging. If the Joplin contingent stays at the Gaylord, where prices start at $179 a night, the cost for the junket, not including food is likely somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000.

The registration fees for the 27 were included in the list of bills approved by the R-8 Board of Education during its June 25 meeting.

The Model School Conference is sponsored by the International Center for Leadership in Education and is advertised as "Doing More with Less: Common Core, Next Generation Assessments, Teacher Evaluations."

The advertising for the event indicates that it is "not just a conference, it is a four-day, intensive professional learning event."

This is at least the third straight year, Joplin has sent a contingent to the conference. Last year, a group from the school district was included among the presenters.

The presenters include the chairman of the International Center for Leadership in Education Willard Daggett, who is described on the event website as having "inspired audiences  worldwide and helped  hundreds  of school systems  and districts to move  toward more rigorous and relevant skills and knowledge  for all students. Bill has consulted with education ministries in several countries, and collaborated with CCSSO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, National Governors Association, U.S. Department of Education, USA Today, and NASA."

Other speakers include more representatives of the International Center and an official from the U. S. Department of Education.

During the past two years, Joplin administrators and TLCs have implemented the "rigor, relevance, and relationships" framework that is pushed by Daggett, who is featured in the accompanying video, and the International Center.

At the board's August meeting, Superintendent C. J. Huff and board attorney John Nicholas made a big deal of how open and aboveboard the Board of Education is in granting access to its meetings. Why, according to them, the Joplin R-8 Board of Education is the very picture of American democracy in action. They can make rules keeping people from addressing the board because the law allows them to. There is no law that requires administration to post documentation for the board meetings on the district website. I am sure that will be their answer if anyone asks.

My response- It appears that it was only a good idea to provide documentation until someone actually started looking at it.

These are the actions of people who have something to hide.